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Laura Rowlett's Page

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"Thanks for responding to my comment so quickly. My goal is to do some freelance work for outdoor or environmental journals. As a hydrologist most of my work is related to environmental issues and may be of interest to people who enjoy the outdoors;…"

"Hi there. I have a magazine journalism degree from Ball State (2004) and have made most of my contacts in this industry through people I know and not through monster.com, journalismjobs.com or job fairs. I'm still pretty new at this but am a…"

"Laura,
I’m a new member of A Greener Indiana and am always searching for individuals who have literary experience and have had work published. I was going through the member profiles, looking for people associated with publishing, magazines…"

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Thanks for responding to my comment so quickly. My goal is to do some freelance work for outdoor or environmental journals. As a hydrologist most of my work is related to environmental issues and may be of interest to people who enjoy the outdoors; I don’t know. Good examples, of these journals, would be Outdoor Indiana, published by the IDNR or Wetlands the Journal of the Society of Wetland Scientist.
Subjects could range from a description of the restoration of historic wetlands to describing the procedure for construction of a natural pond and could be highly technical or something basic that children would enjoy.
My questions are; how do you make your articles interesting and not come across as a technical report? I write a large volume of reports in my work but these reports are definitely not interesting and won’t be read by anyone not required to read them. If an author submitted a sample of work, is there a good chance it would be read or tossed aside without review? If a rejected manuscript is of decent quality, will the editors respond with comments or just reply with a rejection notice?
When you started did you select a few magazines and continue submitting manuscripts to them until you became familiar with what was wanted or did you submit the manuscript to a large number of magazines?
I’m not looking to generate an income from my writing but to gain professional recognition and the enjoyment of writing about the environment. You mentioned a query letter in your response email. I’m not familiar with that term.
I know I have asked a great many questions and hope I haven’t used up too much of your time but I am a novice at this and it’s something I have wanted to do for quite some time.
Thanks again,
Terry Bonbrake

I’m a new member of A Greener Indiana and am always searching for individuals who have literary experience and have had work published. I was going through the member profiles, looking for people associated with publishing, magazines or journals and noticed that you are a freelance writer.

I’m a Professional Hydrologist, living in Arizona, and intend to write some articles on hydrology and the environment, to have them published in environmental/ecological journals for professional recognition.

I hope I’m not being too forward but I would like to ask how you broke into freelance work. How did you make your initial contacts with the publishers and have your work recognized. Are there professional associations where authors can make contact with other authors or publishers and receive advice?

Do you have a Communications or English degree or did you develop your own literary style through practice? I don’t want to over whelm you any more questions and want to thank you in advance for any assistance or advice you may be able to give me.